Of course, there are many more items that could/should be on my list. The above will suffice for now. Perhaps I’ll have a quarterly list update.

I nearly made the butter and cheese over the holiday break. However, what with the hustle and bustle of having extended family over for a week, I didn’t get around to it. I purchased some heavy whipping cream for the tasks, but most of it was consumed in the many cups of coffee that were served over Christmas weekend.

Actually, the delay was a blessing. Shortly after Christmas weekend my dad and I sought out, located, and visited a nearby (40 miles) dairy farm, Diamond B Cattle Company, that offers wonderful raw Jersey cow milk. This is the pure unadulterated milk. No antibiotics, no rBGH, no homogenization. And, the only Pasteuring involved was when the cows enjoyed a stroll and some fresh grass, which is all day every day. There’s a good inch or two of cream right on the top of the milk. I said Jersey milk, not Holstein. Clifford’s dairy farm is small (123 acres), but well run, clean, and state certified. I saw the cows, the pasture, and the tubes and tank that takes the milk into the little building where the milk is kept and sold to the public. There’s a refrigerator just inside the unassuming one-room building where the jugged milk is kept. Next to that is the box for one to put the money to cover however many gallons (or half-gallons) one takes. It’s all done on the honor system, but Clifford usually comes out to say hello before you make your way back to your car. Here’s their website: www.diamondbcattle.com, which I found through realmilk.com

We got a Wii for Christmas for our kids, wink wink, nudge nudge. Of course, my wife and I have tried it out too. She got Wii Fit, which is a fun way to get some exercise done. Currently, I am the ski jump and obstacle course champion. I try not to gloat too much…no, that’s not true. I gloat a bit too much. All in fun. My wife and I submitted to the Wii’s assessment of our current state of fitness, which is supposed to baseline us, giving us a starting point. Tomorrow I may go shopping for a cane. My Wii says I am older than my birth certificate states. And so, I resolve to play the penguin catching fish on a wobbly float of ice and to flap my arms like a chicken to fly from one touchdown point to the next. By Spring, I hope to be a slimmer penguin…er, or a more muscular chicken.